Raw wool insulation

I’ve used raw wool to insulate my feet in boots. It felts easily and keeps my feet warm.

Samantha Lewis wrote:
a good dusting with food grade diatomaceous earth (DE) and stuffed in the walls and ceiling of the red cabin.  
(zip)
we did not wash any of this wool.  It is a bit dirty with bits of straw.  some is partly felted     dusting it with DE will keep moths and other insects from being a problem

Now this is an idea I hadn't heard or considered....I assume the DE would stick nicely to the oil in the fleeces.
Does the oil affect the action like water does?
Do you think that moisture would be a problem in a humid environment? Although we have to consider dew points and vapour barriers to ensure no condensation within house insulation in the UK anyhow.
Do we know of any longer term experiences of wool protection by DE?
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going off to read mega thread on DE

John Wilkinson wrote:

Nancy Reading wrote:

Hi Nancy,

Slightly worryingly, I went to the site you had provided a link to and ordered 5kg of the stuff.  The order went through without any questions or checks!

Next hurdle will be to see if it is allowed to be sent to me across the Irish Sea!

Thanks again.

John

Hi John,

Just wondering if the borax got delivered or you are awaiting a day in court?

I'm also struggling to source borax (no luck on the site previously mentioned as they don't offer shipping to rep. of Irl). I'm not sure anyway if my plan will work as I'm wondering about using sheep's wool underground in a similar way to John Hayatt's insulation umbrella in his passive annual heat storage concept. As mentioned before, wool is so cheap and readily available it would be great if it works. I'll rinse it clean, pull out any bad bits, and hopefully get some borax on it but I'm not sure if it will work in such compressed conditions with approx 3/4 ton per sqm weight on it. I also might need to try using some kind of breather membrane instead of plastic to cover it and I'm sure I'll come up with another few alterations before i get started. I'm hoping to try it out on a solar greenhouse next year so we'll see how it goes but I'm more hopeful now after hearing about using it as an insulator under a pond.👍

Very interesting to read about your usage of DE. I'm not yet sure how to apply it so or will stay on and inside the will for hopfully many many years.
Also i found this on the Internet where they say DE had to be applied in two steps.
Has anyone got any idea what is meant by that?

That's the link:
https://greencoast.org/sheeps-wool-insulation/

Samantha Lewis wrote:I have about 30 Finn sheep.



a good dusting with food grade diatomaceous earth (DE) and stuffed in the walls and ceiling of the red cabin.  


we did not wash any of this wool.  It is a bit dirty with bits of straw.  some is partly felted     dusting it with DE will keep moths and other insects from being a problem

Super interesting thread!

Just wondering how everyone makes sure that the wool doesn't slide down in between the walls?
I was thinking of putting up some nails in between the inside and outside wall so the wool kind of hangs on these nails. Does anyone have a smarter, less intensive way of construction to make sure the wool won't slide down the walls?

This leafblower sounds amazing;
A leaf blower and hose system was rigged up to blow the wool into the void.  It worked really well, fluffing up the wool as it traveled through the flexible pipe.

Samantha Lewis wrote:I have about 30 Finn sheep.
I gave all my extra wool to wheaton labs in montana



a good dusting with food grade diatomaceous earth (DE) and stuffed in the walls and ceiling of the red cabin.  

The cabin was fully built, but a bit drafty.  I think they just stuffed it in around the existing insulation and now it is super cozy.

The pump house at wheaton labs has a mycoinsulation roof.  I think the plan with the walls is to stuff burlap sacks with wool and staple them between the studs as the exterior wall boards are going up.


we did not wash any of this wool.  It is a bit dirty with bits of straw.  some is partly felted     dusting it with DE will keep moths and other insects from being a problem

I tried it as you described it and the moths are crawling around, over and through the DE. I already tried 2 kinds of ultrafine Diatomaceous earth and it doesn' seem to keep the moths away :( Back to square one for me...

"That said, most people add it in the final rinse when scouring it (or washing)."

Do you know, how much borax should i use? Borax grams on litres water or kilograms.

Borax used for scouring would depend on the hardness of your water, but other water softeners are kinder to wool.

Imarts Cakurs wrote:"That said, most people add it in the final rinse when scouring it (or washing)."

Do you know, how much borax should i use? Borax grams on litres water or kilograms.

I use it for moth control and about one to four tablespoons for a mid size fleece.  

More and the wool starts to feel funny.

But I am getting to the stage where I'm not sure it's worth it so when this box is used up, I'll reevaluate.